


Stay

by bonerthatiusedtoknow



Series: Unrequited Frerard Drabbles (Or a Bunch of Times Gerard Said 'I Love You' But Didn't Mean It Like That) [3]
Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Drabble, Drabble Collection, Gen, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26393734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonerthatiusedtoknow/pseuds/bonerthatiusedtoknow
Summary: The night Gerard decided to sober up.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Series: Unrequited Frerard Drabbles (Or a Bunch of Times Gerard Said 'I Love You' But Didn't Mean It Like That) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910137
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously this is fanfiction, so I'm not going to apologize for inaccuracies. Also, let it be known that I have no idea what the actual date Matt officially left the band is, I've tried to find info on it, but the internet it keeping her secrets for now. For sake of this fic, let's pretend he's still around for now.

He wishes that he could say that it’s a shock when Brian calls him in the middle night and tells him to get in there with Gerard, before he reaches through the phone and jacks his scrawny ass up. The only surprise, though, is Brian, of all people, calling Frank scrawny while knowing good and damn well that they are practically interchangeable from the neck down. And maybe the hour. Still, he wishes he hadn’t been expecting this any day now, because the guilt eating at him is almost worse than the fear rolling sickly around in his gut. He’s watched Gerard wreck himself six ways from Sunday every single night for months, watched him down pills, disappear into bathrooms with conspicuous company, and drink his weight in alcohol. He’s watched him spiral out of control, untethered and unheeding to anyone that reached out to him, and he’s done nothing to stop him. Not because he hasn’t wanted to. So many times he longed to grab Gerard by both of his arms and shake him out of his self destructive stupor. Tell him that he didn’t need all of it, that everything they worked for was going to go up in smoke if he didn’t stop, that soon there wouldn’t be anything left of Gerard and _that_ would kill Frank. But every time he felt his lips loosen, cowardice and sharp, knowing eyes— _Not my keeper, Frank_ — kept his tongue curbed. He isn’t sure what he will find when he gets in there, but he knows whatever greets him will be, at least in part, his fault. The knowledge of that is a lead weight in his belly, that he tries to ignore as he pounds on the motel door—only the classiest of digs for his little band of misfits. He just hopes that it isn’t too late. 

Beating his fist against the door for five minutes gets him nowhere, his thoughts terrified and raving, so he takes to screaming at it. “Gerard, open the fucking door!” Frank can hear some shuffling from the other side where his ear is pressed against it, but it doesn’t open.”Gerard!” He butts his forehead against the metal in frustration, then again because it seems like the thing to do. “If you don’t open this door right fucking now, I swear I’m going to kick it the fuck down!”

“Yeah! Open the door, so this piece of shit will shut the fuck up and let me sleep!” Frank’s head swivels to glare at the intrusion, a crusty looking guy with this head hanging out of his room one unit over with his own glare to match. He already has his mouth open to form the words to tell the guy where precisely he can shove his meddling nose, when the sharp click of a latch gets Frank’s attention. He pushes into Gerard’s room as soon as the door cracks open, crusty guy forgotten. 

“What the fuck, Gee?” Frank breathes. Gerard fidgets under his scrutinizing gaze, hands curling and uncurling in the loose fabric of his shirt. His eyes are bloodshot, the skin around them somehow both puffy and sunken at the same time. Days old makeup has smudged across his cheek and under his eyes, making him look a little like he’s been playing in a fireplace, or maybe using charcoals which he never fails to get everywhere. Frank wants to reach out and wipe it away, but Gerard’s skin looks so thin and papery that he’s afraid it might rip and peel under the attention like a tissue paper mask. He goes for the neck of Gerard’s shirt instead, curling a finger in the collar and tugging him in to wrap him up in a hug that Gerard falls instantly into. “Why didn’t you say anything?” Frank asks, though he already knows the answer. Gerard pushes his face further into Frank’s neck, and it’s a little gross, still wet with tears and probably snot from crying. Frank cups the back of his head and just holds him there, though, snot and all. “I would have helped you, asshole. I would have done anything, you just had to ask.”

Gerard’s nodding into his skin, sniffing noisily, before he answers, voice raw and croaking. “I know. But you would have made me stop, and I wasn’t ready to stop yet.”

“Fucking idiot,” Frank sighs. Gerard’s hair is soft but greasy between his fingers. He wonders idly if he could steer him into a shower at some point tonight. 

“I know.” Frank decides maybe that’s a mission for a little later, and instead starts walking them towards one of the beds. He doesn’t know where Otter fucked off to, but he has half a mind to find him and wring his neck for leaving Gerard by himself on a night when he’s like this. “You would all be better off if I was gone.” Frank shoves him back instantly, a hand clenched on each of Gerard’s shoulders, shaking him once before he can rein himself in. Gerard blinks at Frank dazedly. 

“Shut up,” Frank says. “There is no us without you. Don’t say shit like that.”

“It’s true though,” Gerard says, earnest like he’s telling Frank that the sky is blue or some other indisputable fact, instead of attempting to launch an argument for the suicide of his best friend. “I know you think it sometimes. You all do.”

“Gerard—”

“I puked in your hair last week! I fucking—I fell off the stage. That kid broke his ankle.”

“ _Gerard_ .” His eyes are going glassy again. Shit. Frank sighs and cups both sides of his face, tilting his head back up from where he’d cast his gaze to the ground. “I don’t _care_ . I don’t care if you _shit_ in my hair last week, dude.” Gerard’s face scrunches up in disgust. “We wouldn’t be better off without you. And that kid was fucking delighted to be touching you. It was the best day of his life, so shut the fuck up.” Gerard opens his mouth to argue but Frank claps a hand over it and shakes his head. “You can convince your reflection. You can scream it from the rooftop and write it on a billboard. Hell, you can write a fucking song about how happy I would be without you, and you’d still be fucking wrong, okay?” Gerard just stares at him unblinking, so Frank glares and lifts his eyebrows meaningfully. “Okay?” His sigh is a soft puff against Frank’s palm as he finally nods. Satisfied, Frank pulls his hand away and tells Gerard to get in the bed while he gets him some water and a Tylenol. 

Frank sits the styrofoam cup of water on the little nightstand along with a packet of Tylenol that he’d swiped from the gas station a couple days earlier, frowning at Gerard who is still standing by the bed. “Gee?” He looks up and shakes his head at Frank, his hands still twisting in his shirt tail. “Come on, man. You need some sleep.” They both do, honestly. If he was tired before, he’s exhausted now. Frank tugs Gerard’s hands free of his shirt, and for the first time since he’d gotten inside the room the smell really hits him. “Let’s get this off of you,” he says with a grimace. He can make him take a shower in the morning maybe, because tonight is officially shot. 

Gerard lifts his hands obediently and lets Frank pull the fabric over his head. “And your jeans, come on.” After a few minutes of awkward wriggling, he finally has Gerard down to a pair of plain black briefs, and is pushing him down into the bed and pulling the blanket over him when Gerard catches his wrist. 

“Stay,” Gerard says. As if Frank had any plans to leave him to his own devices tonight. 

“I’ll be right here,” he answers, gesturing at the bed just a couple feet away. Otter can sleep outside for all he cares.

“No, stay,” Gerard says again, and he’s tugging at Frank’s arm as he wiggles backwards on the mattress to make room. He sighs even though it’s no real hardship, but acquiesces all the same. “Why do you get clothes?” Gerard grumbles, his voice already thick with fatigue as he snuggles up to Frank’s side. 

“Because, unlike some people, I took a shower, and my clothes don’t smell like roadkill.”

“Says you.” Frank rolls his eyes, but smiles just a little. 

“Are you ready to stop now?” he asks, because he can’t stop himself. At first he doesn’t get an answer, and he wonders if maybe Gerard doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but then his head bobs against Frank’s chest. Something eases in his stomach at that and he lets himself relax into his pillow. He thinks Gerard must have fallen asleep after a few minutes, his breathing gone slow and deep, and Frank’s not far behind with the warmth of Gerard’s body pressed all along his side and pillowed on his chest like a living weighted blanket. But then he speaks, his voice soft and sad in the quiet of the room. 

“You don’t wish that you never met me?”

“No.” Frank’s fingers catch in Gerard’s hair again, and with his ear pressed against him like this he wonders if Gerard can hear his heart breaking in his chest right now. “You, this band, this is the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says, sincere because if Gerard knows nothing else, he should know at least that much. 

Gerard is already watching him when Frank opens his eyes, searching. Like the answer to all of life's mysteries can be found dwelling just beneath the surface of Frank's skin. His eyebrows pull together, not quite a frown, but something, as his fingers find Frank’s face. “But I hurt you all the time.” 

He tries to play it off with a grin. “I hurt everyone all the time. We’re a rock band, that’s what we do.” But Gerard is shaking his head solemnly, and thumbing Frank’s bottom lip. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he says. 

Frank fights the urge to roll out of the bed, to avoid this conversation. Any other time he would be halfway out the door already, but Gerard is still drunk and depressed, and no matter how uncomfortable Frank is right now he won’t leave him to deal with his thoughts alone. His pitiful heart thumps too heavily in it's cage, two beats where there should be one when Gerard drags his thumb across Frank’s bottom lip again, watching with fascination as it pulls away from his teeth and settles back again with the movement. Frank doesn’t even realize that Gerard has moved in, too focus on the rush of blood in his ears and the swooping in his belly, until his eyes cross as they’re watching Gerard’s face, hot breath puffing out over his mouth, clinging to his skin like a touch. “Gerard,” he protests, pushing lightly at his shoulder. 

“I don’t want you to hate me,” Gerard whispers, then he’s brushing chapped lips against Franks, soft and searching, and Frank is only one man, one stupid, lovesick man, and this has been such a long, fucked up night, a long fucked up handful of months, and for about three seconds he can’t bring himself to push Gerard away. Gerard presses in more determinedly, brushes his tongue out to coax Frank’s mouth open, but Frank’s brain comes back online all at once and he pushes Gerard back more firmly this time. 

“I don’t hate you,” he says, resisting when Gerard tries to move in again. 

“You will.” But Gerard flops back on the mattress and blinks up at the ceiling when Frank thwarts his advances again. 

Frank pushes at Gerard until he rolls on his side, so that he can curl up behind him because Gerard loves being the little spoon. “Never,” Frank says, and presses a kiss into the back of his neck. “Stop saying stupid shit, and go to sleep.”

“‘Kay,” Gerard sighs. “Love you, Frankie.”

“Love you too, asshole.” But Gerard doesn’t even hear him, because he’s already snoring into his pillow.


End file.
